Loretta Lynn, country music luminary and songwriting pioneer, dies at 90
- The star saw a number of her edgy tracks banned by country music radio stations, but became the genre’s most decorated female artist
- The self-taught musician penned lyrics inspired by her own early experiences as a married woman and her oft-tumultuous relationship
Loretta Lynn, America’s groundbreaking country titan whose frank lyricism delving into women’s experiences with sex, infidelity and pregnancy touched the nerve of a nation, has died. She was 90 years old.
A family statement published in US media on Tuesday said the beloved songwriter died of natural causes.
Lynn saw a number of her edgy tracks banned by country music stations, but over the course of more than six decades in the business, she became a standard-bearer of the genre and its most decorated female artist ever.
Born Loretta Webb on April 14, 1932 in small-town Kentucky, Lynn was the eldest daughter in an impoverished family of eight kids, a childhood she immortalised in her iconic track “Coal Miner’s Daughter” – a staple on lists of all-time best songs.
“Well, I was borned [sic] a coal miner’s daughter / In a cabin, on a hill in Butcher Holler,” Lynn sang in the hit, which was recorded in 1970. It later became the theme song for the 1980 film of the same name, a biopic about Lynn starring Sissy Spacek, who won an Oscar for the role.
“We were poor but we had love / That’s the one thing that daddy made sure of. He shovelled coal to make a poor man’s dollar.”
